4 Stock This Week [27 Feb 2017 to 3 Mar 2017]

Our 4 Stocks This Week Column highlights several companies that made an impression in the past few weeks, be it in the results they posted, share price movements, industries they operate in or any other reason that makes them an interesting stock to look at.

Globally, the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) All-Country World Index (ACWI), which acts as a proxy of the how stocks are performing in the world, continued to hit new highs. In the USA, the Standard & Poors 500 (S&P 500), an index comprising 500 large companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and NASDAQ, hovered at record levels. It rose for the week, although declining marginally after reaching a high on Wednesday.

Over in Singapore, the benchmark Straits Times Index (STI) increased this week. Opening at the $3.10862 on Monday (27 February 2017), it rose 0.4% for the week, closing at $3.12234. Overall, it has notched 8.4% returns since the start of the year and 14.4% over the past 52-week.

These are the four stocks that came on our radar this week. If you have any stocks that you think are interesting and want to feature them here, do drop us an email or comment on this post on our Facebook page.

# 1 Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Holdings Ltd

Yangzijiang is part of the Singapore Exchange’s (SGX) Maritime and Offshore (MOE) index. The MOE index has been one of the top performers in Singapore since the start of the year, having rebounded close to 20% since September 2016. This has largely tracked the price rebound in crude oil.

With crude oil prices rising from its troughs of US$26 per barrel in January 2016 to US$54 per barrel currently, many analysts are of the opinion that the troughs in the MOE sectors are near.

Yangzijiang released its full year results for 2016 on Wednesday (1 March 2017). Its revenue declined 6% to RMB15.1 billion from RMB16.0 billion last year. Similarly, its net profit posted a decline of 29% to RMB1.8 billion from RMB2.5 billion in 2015. However, its fourth quarter results pointed to a stronger performance and possible upturn, with revenue soaring 76% to RMB5.5 billion and net profit increasing by 13.6 times to RMB0.6 billion.

This was better than expected, as both OCBC Investment Research and DBS Vickers raised its respective share price targets to $0.96 and $1.12 respectively. Investors also agreed with this view, with the company’s share price running up after the market opened on Wednesday (1 March 2017) and continuing to rise till the end of the week.

Yangzijiang’s share price opened at $0.945 on Monday (27 February 2017) and closed the week at $1.090, a stellar gain of more than 15.3% for the week. Overall, its share price has risen over 33.7% since the start of the year, and close to 19.7% for a 52-week period.

Yangzijiang share price chart (1-week)

Source: Yahoo! Finance/ Google Finance

# 2 StarHub Ltd

Together with M1 and Singtel, StarHub has come under intense pressure of late. This is mainly due to the impending arrival of a fourth player, TPG Telecom, into the telecommunications market in Singapore.

This has benefitted the local consumers with the incumbent telcos having had to introduce more competitive pricing schemes to remain relevant once the new entrant begins operations by early 2018.

However, local telcos have had the reverse effect. StarHub had actually released its results at the beginning of February, reporting a generally stable revenue for 2016 of $2.4 billion. This was approximately 1.9% lower than its 2015 revenue. Its net profit declined by a steeper 8.3% to $341.4 million in 2016 compared to $372.3 million in 2015.

Together with its results announcements on Friday (3 February 2017), StarHub also reported that it would be reducing its quarterly dividend by 20%, from 5 cents to 4 cents per quarter. This translated to its shares tumbling a full 20 cents, or 6.7%, when it opened on the next trading day, Monday (6 February 2017). StarHub continued to trade weaker in February.

For this week, however, its shares saw some reprieve, opening at $2.87 on Monday (27 February 2017) and closing at $2.88 on Friday (3 March 2017). Looking at a longer term, StarHub has returned close to 2.5% since the start of the year though it has declined nearly 11.0% in value over the past 52 weeks.

StarHub share price chart (1-week)

Source: Yahoo! Finance/ Google Finance

# 3 Noble Group Ltd

Noble’s share price has risen close to 32.4% since the beginning of the year. This was on the back of a possible interest from one of China’s largest companies Sinochem. However, the rally was halted by another negative report from Iceberg Research, which has been issuing numerous papers regarding the fragility of Noble’s business.

This much-maligned stock, released its results on Monday (27 February 2017), reporting a loss per share of 0.14 US cents in 2016 compared to a loss per share of 17.87 US cents per share in 2015. Noble reported a 25.0% drop in revenue to US$45.5 billion in 2016 from US$60.7 billion in 2015 mainly due to liquidity concerns. However, the firm swung into a net profit from US$8.7 million after reporting a loss of US$1.7 billion in 2015.

Its share price moved sideways, opening at $0.23 on Monday (27 February 2017), and closing at $0.225 on Friday (3 March 2017).

Noble share price chart (1-week)

Source: Yahoo! Finance/ Google Finance

# 4 SUTL Enterprise Ltd

SUTL Enterprise is a leading developer, consultant and operator of integrated marinas. It owns the ONE°15 brand, which also include the ONE°15 Marina Club at Sentosa. With growing affluence bolstering the growth of its business, SUTL has been expanding its operations in Asia, US and Europe.

The company released its 2016 results on Monday (27 February 2017). It reported a 2% increase in revenue to $28.2 million this year, compared to $27.7 million last year. Significantly, it posted a 138% increase in net profit attributable to shareholders to $3.9 million.

It also announced that it would be distributing a dividend of 2 cents per shares, representing about 44.9% of its profit.

Largely as a result of this positive announcement, its share priced increased by 9.1% to $0.72 on Friday (3 March 2017) after opening at $0.66 on Monday (27 February 2017). Overall, the group has returned close to 39.8% since the start of the year.

4 Stocks This Week is not a recommendation from us to buy or sell any of these stocks. For investors who are keen to find out more, you should continue researching about them before making your investment decisions.

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4 Stocks This Week is not a recommendation from us to buy or sell any of these stocks. For investors who are keen to find out more, you should continue researching about them before making your investment decisions.